I Thought Old People Were Supposed to Sleep All the Time
by GIRL IN STORY
Summary: By now they were all used to Bucky's particular brand of PTSD. The nightmares (Steve was the only one allowed to wake him up). The twitch under his left eye (Tony wouldn't let anyone tell him about it, because it only happened when Bucky lied, and Tony wanted to keep beating him at poker). His intense aversion to the subway (he and Bruce shared a cab.) The insomnia was new.


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Steve had a new hobby.

It was a secret. He wasn't doing anything _wrong_ , of course. Steve always tried to do the right thing, but he'd been raised Catholic, so he had the obscure feeling that anything he enjoyed that much had to be at least a little bit wrong.

His hobby was starting to feel more like a fix. He was withdrawing from his friends. He'd started declining missions that weren't DEFCON Aliens-In-New-York. He kept forgetting to eat until Bucky reminded him, which always gave him a rush of shame. Bucky had literally the worst case of PTSD in the history of humanity, and he was still taking care of Steve.

Steve was barely sleeping. He (tried) to take care of Bucky during the day, which meant that he could only get his fix at after dark. Bucky didn't to be taken care of after dark, because he'd tried to fall asleep every night for a week before the doctors insisted on putting him in cryo for his own health.

By now they were all used to Bucky's particular brand of PTSD. The nightmares (Steve was the only one allowed to wake him up). The twitch under his left eye (Tony wouldn't let anyone tell him about it, because it only happened when Bucky lied, and Tony wanted to keep beating him at poker). His intense aversion to the subway (he and Bruce shared a cab.)

The insomnia was new. It had started a month ago, after an fairly uneventful mission. The Hydra facility in Latvia had clearly been abandoned decades ago. It had been empty, except for a lot of dust, a few suspicious looking stains, and a small red book with a star on the cover.

Bruce was teaching Bucky meditation, which was going a lot better than any of them had expected. Bucky still couldn't sleep, but the twitch under his eye was gone.

"You sleepin', Steve? You look worse than me."

Bucky stirred Almond Joy flavored creamer into his coffee. The first bottle had been part of the gift basket that Pepper had given them as a housewarming present. Bucky had gone through several bottles since then.

He kept calling it Mounds. Steve couldn't figure out why until he checked Wikipedia. Almond Joy hadn't been invented until 1946, two years after Bucky's fall, but it was based on the Mounds bar, which the Army had bought for rations during the war. Steve remembered chocolate, but there weren't a lot of D rations to go around by the time he made it overseas, and he'd forgotten what kind of chocolate it was.

It was the first time that Bucky remembered something Steve didn't, but it wasn't the last. The Howlies celebrating Steve's birthday with a rare supply of D rations that Bucky had somehow managed to requisition in the middle of a Bavarian blizzard. Dum Dum, shaving dark slivers of chocolate off the bar and telling them in his booming voice that the Army's requirements for D rations were, "1. Weigh four ounces; 2. Be high in food energy value; 3. Be able to withstand high temperatures; 4. Taste a little better than a boiled potato."

Bruce had tried switching out Bucky's coffee for decaf, because: insomnia, but Bucky's enhanced senses had picked up on the difference, even though all that creamer. They'd both needed to meditate an extra hour to make up for what Bucky had done with the coffee.

"I'm fine," said Steve. "Just worried about you, jerk."

"Well, quit it, punk. Bruce says sleep is just a matter of time."

Until that time, night came, and Steve snuck out.

He didn't like staying at the Tower while Bucky was in cryo, but he was also very invested in his new hobby, habit, whatever. Not to mention, he was on a deadline. Self-imposed, but what about Captain America wasn't?

The fourth of July came entirely too soon. The Avengers threw a party for Steve on the roof of the Tower, with barbecue and fireworks. They sang Happy Birthday in their various dialects. Thor's involved a lot of grunting and pounding on the table.

They kept the fireworks to sparklers and confetti poppers, because Bucky wasn't the only Avenger with PTSD. Steve kept close to Bucky, and Bucky kept close to the edge of the roof, because apparently standing on the edge of a ninety-three story building was less intimidating for him than a confetti popper. Steve noticed that he'd still managed to get confetti in his hair.

Bucky grabbed them hotdogs from the grill. Steve felt ashamed again, but not too ashamed to take the hotdog.

"I got you somethin'," said Bucky.

"I already thanked you for the hotdog," said Steve, around a mouthful of it.

"Not that." Bucky huffed a laugh. "A birthday present."

"You didn't have to do that, Buck," Steve protested half-heartedly. Even during the Great Depression, even during the _war_ , Bucky had always given the best gifts, even when they were D rations that tasted a little better than a boiled potato, but also like the best thing Steve had ever eaten.

"'Course I did. I've forgotten, like, seventy-two of your birthdays."

Bucky handed him a small package. Inside was a notebook, simple and black, like modern Molekines, but Steve knew it wasn't from this century. He opened it, and Bucky looked back at him, young and laughing.

"My sketchbook," Steve said reverently. "It's the last one I filled before you went to war. I couldn't find it."

"I sorta' stole it." Bucky rubbed the back of his head a little sheepishly. More confetti came out. "I lost it when they took the 107th, but Pepper helped me track it down. She knows a lot of art dealers. Apparently, it was part of the Nazi plunder. The MFAA recovered it from a salt mine in Merkers and it ended up at the Met for a while. You ever think you'd make it to the Met, Stevie? Rogers originals fetch a pretty penny these days. You should start painting again. You'd make a fortune."

"As opposed to the life of poverty we have now."

"I'll be poor again pretty soon if Tony doesn't stop cheating at poker," Bucky grumbled.

"You'll be fine." Steve patted his shoulder. "You're eye doesn't twitch anymore."

"Punk."

"Jerk. So my birthday present is something you stole from me? Real classy, Bucky."

Honestly, the idea of Bucky taking his sketches to the front lines made something thaw in Steve's chest, some last piece of ice that, in all this time, hadn't quite melted.

Bucky was smiling, fully aware of this, even before Steve was, and that was his real gift.

"Thank you," Steve said, in what Tony called his Captain America Voice, but Steve just called being sincere.

They paged through the sketchbook in companionable silence, laughing occasionally at one of Steve's more avant garde drawings.

"Shut up. I was going through a phase. You think Picasso didn't regret his Neo Classical period?"

"Yeah, you were going through a phase, but not an artistic one. I don't think Picasso ever had a Cindy Harker From Next Door Period."

Steve closed the notebook carefully. "I got you something too."

"It ain't my birthday," said Bucky.

"Well, I've missed a lot of those too," Steve said quietly. "I'm not sure how you're going to feel about this present, so if you don't want it, just tell me."

"Okay." Bucky sounded wary, but willing to follow Steve's lead. The voice of Sergeants everywhere.

There was a pile of boxes by the barbecue. Most of them were coolers and cardboard boxes filled with party supplies. One was a metal lockbox. Steve took a key from around his neck and opened it.

It contained a dozen small red books with black stars on the covers.

Bucky jerked back as though they were bombs instead of books. "What the hell, Stevie?"

"After we found that book in Latvia, I started going through old Hydra records. They led me to a couple of facilities. It was something I'd been thinking of doing ever since Siberia, but I didn't want to trigger you." Bucky looked upset, and Steve realized how that sounded. "I don't mean the Winter Soldier. I mean your PTSD."

One of the first things Steve had done after Bucky came out of the ice was sit him down with Sam, who'd patiently explained that shell shock was now called PTSD, that it was a disease, and that it had nothing to do with cowardice or weakness. Bucky hadn't believed him until Steve said he had it too. Now they took things like triggers and safe spaces very seriously.

"When the hell have you had the time to-" Bucky answered his own question. "I knew you hadn't been sleeping."

"I couldn't just sleep while you were..." Steve shrugged. "I needed a hobby."

"But book collecting?"

"Look who's talking." Steve held up his own sketchbook.

Bucky shook his head. "We really are old."

"I thought old people were supposed to sleep all the time."

"Now look who's talking."

"A few nights of no sleep won't kill me," said Steve. "I don't want to leave these notebooks out where anyone could get their hands on them. I don't know if I've found them all, but I'm going to keep looking."

After a long pause, Bucky said, "You want some help with that?"

Steve let out his breath. He really hadn't known if the books would be a trigger for Bucky. They probably were, but he had to remember that Bucky was a lot stronger than the twitches and nightmares made him seem sometimes.

"I was going to destroy them right away, but I figured you deserved to do the honors."

Bucky flexed his metal fingers. "That sounds... therapeutic."

"Now the real question," said Steve. "Fireworks or barbecue?"

"You really want to blast pieces of my trigger words out over Manhattan?"

"So barbecue?"

Bucky looked at him with fond incredulity. "I'm not eating Hydra-smoked sausages. Bonfire, Steve. Bonfire."

When Tony remodeled Stark Tower, he'd included a rooftop patio with a firepit. They could only burn a few of the books at a time, but as Bucky said, "That just makes the fun last longer."

The rest of the Avengers had given them their space as soon as they saw the books. Even Tony had just raised his beer in a toast and then turned back to the grill.

"You know what?" said Bucky. "I think I'm gonna' sleep like a baby tonight."

Steve laughed, but Bucky looked serious.

"That means you got to get some sleep too, Stevie."

Steve needed his fix. "I have a lead on a facility in-"

"Steve-"

"You don't understand, Buck."

"What don't I understand?"

"You're my most vulnerable point."

"What?" Bucky looked like he was preparing to be offended.

Steve frowned and threw another book in the fire. "When I raise my shield, I defend my chest, my head, because they're supposed to be my most vulnerable points, but they're not. You're my most vulnerable point, Buck, and you were undefended for seventy-two years."

He was definitely using his Captain America Voice now, but Bucky just rolled his eyes. "Then one more night won't kill me. Come on, Stevie. Just tonight. We'll take one lousy night off off before we go book collecting. Okay?"

Bucky was sitting next to him, knees touching, books burning, the comforting din of the Avengers in the background. Well, the comforting din of Tony. A night in didn't sound like the worst idea in the world. Besides, maybe Bucky really would sleep. Then Steve would need to be there to take care of him.

He sighed. "Okay."

He dropped another book in the fire. It changed the smell of the smoke to something like old books, but even better. The only smell that came close was the Old Book scented soy candle from Pepper's gift basket.

"Huh," said Bucky.

"What?"

"Who would've thought that Captain America would like burning books so much?"


End file.
